Talk:Chicken and Spinach/@comment-80.84.55.122-20150426062540
Why cook the spinach so much? First you boil it, then it's cooked a second time in the oven? That's overkill on the poor spinach when it's a pretty delicate and easy to "cook" veggie to begin with. I'd think just to bring it to a "rare" boil would be plenty, and skip putting it in the oven. By the recipe, it'd be overcooked and have about zero nutrition left to it. Are the chicken legs fried with the skin on and in what kind of oil...olive oil should be the choice, and next DOWN the list would be a combo of canola/olive oil. If it's skin on and fried in some random vegetable oil, what's left that you say to add the wine to, is nothing but "bad fat"..high in cholesterol and very bad for your health, period. I'd remove the skin from all the legs and place just enough of one piece of skin in the pan to create and keep some of the flavor and a vehicle for the wine (and only use as much of the leftover fat as needed, not much more than a couple tablespoons at the most)which seems like an un-needed ingredient while the alcohol is cooked out naturally by the heat but so is most of the flavor that it had to fight in the chicken grease! Then there's the onions and the bechamel. There isn't a bechamel recipe listed here. Bechamel is a simple roux of BUTTER, FLOUR, and MILK,...3 simple ingredients, NOT chicken grease, wasted white wine, nutmeg and some flour and milk, FIVE ingredients. The onions should be cooked the way listed as "stir fried", but really folks, it's just a sautee of the onions. Remove the onions, a small amount of the grease they were cooked in and place to the side in a bowl nearby, you're gonna need it soon, and make the bechamel. If you try to make it with the onions already in the pan as directed, it's going to be almost impossible to end up with a nice smooth and creamy bechamel because onions were in the way! Don't let the word scare ya, it's just a simple roux you've probably made a million times if you live in the Southern U.S. as a base for several gravies and "country fried(fill in the blank)". When it's just about right, and always keeping an eye on it since it WILL thicken sometimes, and quick!, THEN add the already cooked onions and whatever grease is left on 'em into the bechamel, turn off the heat, remove from the heat source and continue to stir to get all the onion flavor you can while it cools just a bit. Too much and you've got a pan of tasty glue. I have no idea what kind of cheese is supposed to be used in this recipe since it's never mentioned, but several are great with spinach AND chicken. Personally, I favor either Feta(made from usually either goat or sheep milk) or Gorgonzola which is very similar in taste to bleu cheese, but if you've never tried this combination of chicken, spinach and cheese, try a couple cheeses first and find what you and the people you're serving would prefer instead of doing what I THINK the "author" intended...reach for store bought, processed, stale parmesean from a can. If you're gonna spend time in the kitchen to make a meal, take the time to be a lil creative, and you'll learn a lot as you go. At the end, since the chicken should still be at almost serving temp and has sat about the right amount of time to rest(about 5 mins and no more than 10) I'd totally skip putting it all back in the oven just to melt a little bit of cheese. It'd be easier to place the pan in the microwave where you can see it, and turn it OFF just as the cheese starts to melt, and let it sit for about a minute. Cheese manages to retain it's temp for a while, so be careful if you don't already know that lol If you follow the recipe above, it says to "sprinkle with grated cheese". If it's grated, it shouldn't take but a few seconds to start melting unless it IS refridgerated(cold) canned Parmesean. If that's the cheese of choice, and I hope not, let it sit out a few minutes and hit room temp, at least the amount you intend to use. The recipe says "one cup.." and that seems to be a LOT of cheese for just 4 chicken legs. That's even too much for 4 bone in chicken BREASTS! Anyway...remember, the chicken's already hot, the bechamel is still hot, and overcooking the spinach just to melt a lil bit of cheese makes me want to cry(btw, fresh spinach in a bag or from a farmers market is a LOT better tasting, you just have to take a few more minutes to wash it, remove the stem piece from the end of each leaf and then just slice the leaves across the stem, a stack at a time in about 1/8" strips. No big deal at all, and the difference in taste, as well as the fresh green color is worth the time...about 5 whole minutes) This recipe has potential...LOTS of it, but it wasn't thought out or explained very well, and made a big deal of bechamel like it was a big fancy deal. I guess it was their newly learned culinary word of the month, idk. Chicken grease and hot wine is NOT a "sauce" either, but correctly made bechamel IS a sauce, but only when it's done right and used right. Idk...so much potential here and so much wrong. Work on it though and you'll find your own mistakes. I already did enough of your homework so others wouldn't suffer a bad and confusing meal if they followed what was already here.